Justice: No misconduct in Bush interrogation memos

Tags:

Text Size

-

+

reset

Berkeley law professor John Yoo will not face any official censure or punishment for one of the most controversial aspects of President George W. Bush's war on terror.
AP Photo

"The deeply flawed legal opinions proffered by these former OLC officials created a 'golden shield' that sought to protect from scrutiny and prosecution the Bush administration's torture of detainees in U.S. custody. In drafting and signing these unsound legal analyses, OLC attorneys sanctioned torture, contrary to our domestic anti-torture laws, our international treaty obligations and the fundamental values of this country," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said in a statement announcing an investigative hearing next Friday. Spokeswoman Erica Chabot would not comment when asked if Yoo and Bybee would be asked to appear.

Leahy also called for Bybee to resign his federal judgeship. "If the Judiciary Committee, and the Senate, knew of Judge Bybee's role in creating these policies, he would have never been confirmed to a lifetime appointment to the federal bench. The right thing to do would be for him to resign from this lifetime appointment," Leahy said.

Bybee was confirmed as a judge in 2003 after serving as head of the OLC, a branch of the Justice Department which provides legal opinions to the president.

The House Judiciary Committee released the documents, which also included several drafts of the report, responses from Yoo and Bybee and Margolis' memo. The final 259-page report is full of new information gleaned from OPR interviews and research. The office was hampered, for example, because many of Yoo's e-mails were deleted. And as the memos were being drafted, National Security Council lawyer John Bellinger told Yoo not to share details of the CIA interrogation program with the State Department because the information was too sensitive.

Yoo, Bybee and other Bush administration officials—including former Attorney General Michael Mukasey—are also facing private complaints that could lead to their being disbarred.

Yoo's lawyer, Miguel Estrada, pushed back against the report. "Professor Yoo served our nation well and honorably in times of great peril. OPR's work in this matter was shoddy and biased," he said in a statement Friday.

The Center for Constitutional Rights, which has led legal challenges against holding detainees at Guantanamo Bay, joined Leahy's calls for Bybee to step down. The three lawyers "caused incalculable damage to our country and to thousands of victims as a result of the twisted legal advice they provided while at the Office of Legal Counsel," the group said in a statement.

The U.S. law against torture bans acts "intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering."

Bybee and Yoo wrote that the torture ban "covers only extreme acts" and that causing physical pain only amounts to torture when it is "of an intensity akin to that which accompanies serious physical injury such as death or organ failure." Interrogators would only be guilty of inflicting severe mental pain if they caused "lasting psychological harm, such as seen in mental disorder like posttraumatic stress disorder."

We are truly a nation which requires a committe to tell the US Government how to limit spending? what torture is and is not? who creates jobs in America? who uses, not creates American economic output?

It ain't all that complicated. And the founding fathers documented the course over 200 years ago. Dems and RINOs have tried to deny that basis of that document over the space of the last century to-date.

Sad.

....

As an American I am not so shocked that Obama was given the Nobel Peace Prize without any accomplishments to his name, but that America gave him the White House based on the same credentials. - Newt Gingrich

According to Dick Cheney waterboarding is the coolest and most awesome thing a country can do... just wondering why other countries are not falling over each other to run and institute that... oh yea because ITS TORTURE !

Dilly-dallying over closing gitmo, backtracking on a KSM trial in NYC, and now admitting that water boarding does not constitute physical torture (it is psychological torture and I approve of its use on high value captives) are all good signs that the Obama administration is waking up from its utopian dream about how to confront jihadists. I also applaud the increased use of predator drones in the Afghan-Pakistan theater. Predators are judge-jury-executioner and collateral damage be damned.

Now, if only a sense of reality could begin to appear in his horrible (and dangerous) domestic agenda, I might actually have a reason to believe Obama's presidency will not be Carter reprise.

No surprise here, Obama/Holder tipped their hand many months ago but the far lefties chose to ignore what they were saying. NO ONE will ever be prosecuted for torture, take it to the bank! Good move, now if Obama can work his way back to the middle on domestic issues the young fella might have a shot at a second term. I've said it before...Obama will come through (I believe) on defense/national security issues, it's all the domestic stuff that will sink his ship...we'll see.

According to Dick Cheney waterboarding is the coolest and most awesome thing a country can do... just wondering why other countries are not falling over each other to run and institute that... oh yea because ITS TORTURE !

Face it dumbcrats, the American people are sick of everything dumbcrats and their leaders 0zer0, Pelosi and Reid stand for. Sick of taxes, spending, welfare, bailouts, tax cheats in the cabinet, porkulus, deficits for our grandchildren, backroom deals for lobbyists and union, marxist radical czars, refusing to work with republicans by saying "I won", bowing to dictators, letting nukes flourish in N.Korea and Iran, surrendering in Afghanistan and Iraq, giving Miranda Rights to foreign terrorists, Cap & Tax, worshiping at the Global Warming zealots alter, and Socialized Soylent Green Healthcare.

Just keep calling us Tea Baggers, Wingnuts, Nazi's, Knuckle Draggers, Mouth Breathers, etc. Lady Liberty is smiling again because the Tea Party is saving the Republic from the Fascist Narcissist Petulant Man-Child and his brownshirts Pelosi and Reid. We are sick of the lies from libturds, and will not be lectured like 0zer0 lectures 6th graders from his teleprompter.The Tea Party Express is coming for you. We will not be stopped!

Other cases of "poor judgment" but not "professional misconduct" found by David Margolis:

1. the kidnapping, enslavement, buying and selling of black people by white people.

2. Japanese internment camps.

3. the Salem Witch trials.

4. Michael Vicks' dogfighting hobby.

5. Nazi concentration camps.

6. Saddam Hussein's gassing of the Kurds.

7. Apartheid.

8. The 9/11 attacks.

Good to know there are so many good "conservatives" in America who feel exactly the same way!

With a little luck, Miguel Estrada will by virtue of his name, be the victim of "poor judgment" (rather than "professional misconduct") and find himself riding in shackles on a poorly ventilated bus to Mexico!

Great, so the people who like trashing the constitution will get away with it. I suppose that warrant-less wiretaps will also be found to be completely legal. Next time, Watergate won't be illegal. How soon can we get these parties out of there?

Once again, the Bush administration has been exhonorated by an impartial judge. Shame on the Obama administration and the media for defaming a former administration which kept this country safe for 8 years. How quickly liberals forget but history will correct all the erroneous rants of the MSM and the democrats.

- - more than a year ago I underwent a medical procedure that was akin to, but far worse than, "water-boarding". It was an emergency, but strangely, it did NOT save my life. It merely provided information that allowed other Doctors to save my life.

I am 5' tall. I weigh 94lbs. If I could live through that procedure without complaint, why can't these psychopaths do as much as I did?

I'll tell you why - - they are cowards. They are cowards from the depth of their beings - in their spines and vascular and circulatory systems - their DNA.

They send "others" out to become human bombs, but hide and protect themselves behind innocents.

They are Monsters. Inhuman. They are Sadists. Their behavior has nothing to do with a "misguided" interpretation of the Koran. It has everything to do with "brain-washing" young boys into becoming human bombs.

There's a terrible Psycho-Sexual element to these Monsters that is far beyond anything recorded in the West or in the Asian East.

Why would Atta demand in his Will, after destroying the Trade Towers, that "no woman" may touch his remains? Why was Hasan of Fort Hood so desperate for a wife, but turned away from that hope by Al Awlaki and into mass slaughter? Why was that sad Nigerian boy, who wanted a girlfriend, enticed to strap bombs to his private parts to destroy 300 or more innocent people? On the promise of 72 Virgins?

CAIR be damned. But, I suspect it already is.

Muslims living in the US, must come forward to address these MOST IMPORTANT QUESTIONS. Why couldn't a lonely young, handsome man from an excellent Nigerian family find a girlfriend? Why was his only alternative to blow himself up, and 300 other innocents, for a suspicious promise of 72 virgins in "heaven"?

MUSLIMS IN AMERICA - note I do NOT call you "AMERICAN MUSLIMS" because you evidently do not wish to be part of the Whole of This Country. Whatever.

YOU HAVE A LOT TO ANSWER FOR - WHY DID HASAN NOT HAVE A WIFE? WHY DID THAT LONELY YOUNG MAN TRY TO BLOW UP 300 PEOPLE OVER THE CITY OF DETROIT? YOU SHOULD THINK DEEPLY ABOUT WHAT IS SO DAMAGING ABOUT YOUR BELIEFS ABOUT MEN AND WOMEN.

THESE 7th CENTURY TRIBAL, "DESERT" BELIEFS ARE CHOKING, SUFFOCATING AND KILLING YOUR OWN CHILDREN.

NO SOCIETY IN THE ENTIRE WORLD WANTS YOU AS EMIGRES. YOU BRING ONLY DEATH, WAR AND BLOODSHED - whether it is the Philippines, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria or China. NO ONE WANTS YOU - - - BECAUSE YOU ARE WAR AND DEATH.

Poll: Majority of Americans Support Waterboarding Terrorists Posted on May 6, 2009

I’m sure this poll is a heartache for the left. Perhaps they aren’t as “reaility based” as they thought. I’m sure in their view, most Americans hate America, and civil liberties. Reality, however, says Americans understand the harsh truth of reality, and common sense. If you have to bash a few heads to protect a few thousand lives, Americans understand. Moral absolutism is asking for disaster.

Six in ten people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Wednesday believe that some of the procedures, such as water boarding, were a form of torture, with 36 percent disagreeing. But half the public approves of the Bush administration’s decision to use of those techniques during the questioning of suspected terrorists, with 50 percent in approval and 46 percent opposed.

“Roughly one in five Americans believe those techniques were torture but nonetheless approve of the decision to use those procedures against suspected terrorists,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. “That goes a long way toward explaining why a majority don’t want to see former Bush officials investigated.”

Fifty-seven percent of those questioned don’t want Congress to investigate Bush officials who authorized those harsh interrogation procedures, with 42 percent calling for action by lawmakers. Fifty-five percent also don’t want a similar investigation by an independent panel.

Have you heard the latest rules of engagement for the military in Afghanistan? Soldiers can longer hurt the feelings of captured Taliban. That's sounds pretty gay to me. How did the State Department enact the Federal "You Hurt My Feelings" Crime legislation in the jurisdiction of Afghanistan?